News from WCER

UW-Madison professor Tom Carpenter, whose student-centered ideas about teaching math to young children from all backgrounds and skill levels helped transform the field of mathematics education for students and teachers, died August 7 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

A joint research practice partnership between UW-Madison and the Madison Metropolitan School District has received a $400,000 federal grant for a two-year study to assess and improve instruction in the district’s 4-year-old kindergarten program. Teaching is to be enhanced with the design and piloting of a made-to-order professional development program built around the needs of the district’s 4K educators.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected Robert D. Mathieu, the Albert E. Whitford Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, as an inaugural member of the STEM Education Advisory Panel. Mathieu, director of the university’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) and associate dean for research at its School of Education, begins his first term on the national panel immediately and could serve up to three years.

This news release describes the Madison Education Partnership’s third research study, which focuses on the attendance of students from kindergarten through third grade in the Madison Metropolitan School District. The study finds that children with unexcused absences perform far worse in school than those with excused absences. However, these differences may not necessarily be caused by missing school but by other challenges children with unexcused absences may face, such as poverty or a school’s response to unexcused absences.

WCER researcher Nicholas Hillman received honorary membership in the UW–Madison chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, a student honors society. He is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy analysis. The chapter inducted 142 students and gave honor membership to two other professors at an April ceremony.

Parents, teachers and anyone interested in learning how Madison Metropolitan School District’s (MMSD) four-year-old kindergarten (4K) is supporting local children is invited to the first community presentation of research on the MMSD 4K program by the Madison Education Partnership (MEP).